There was a teen who is studying History at GCSE level.
It was on the curriculum to review video of the extermination camps as part of the coursework.
A German walked up to a Jew in this archive footage and shot the Jewish person in the head at point blank range.
The Jewish man fell to the ground, dead.
Only one child in the class flinched.
That was the only child who was affected by what they were seeing on the screen.
After the footage had ended, the teacher started pleasantly asking the child questions in front of the class.
Teacher: "You seemed affected by what we saw, can you explain why?"
Teen: "I know we are required to do this as coursework and that is fine because we need to understand what happened and why, but to see someone, a real person, be shot in the head and fall to the ground is very affecting.... that is a life we just saw snuffed out, that person will never be alive again, this is not TV or a game, it really happened to a real person.".
Teacher: "Was anybody else affected in a similar way?"
Class: "Nah, not really, we've seen worse on TV, and we play Call of Duty and stuff on the Xbox".
Child: "That's pretend, and these things numb us to reality so when something really bad happens it no longer seems really bad"
Teacher: "It's rare to find a child who still feels that way".
That night the Teen said to their parent, "I know that you are careful about what we bring in to our house through media and games and stuff, and you talk about how it desensitises you to life and it was just annoying to me but I never really appreciated it until today... Thanks, Mum."
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